The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On May 27, 9:40 pm, "John Russell" wrote:
at least I can set recordings of different qualities so I can do radio
stations in basic quality (since it only affects the picture) and maximise
the
hard drive space that way (since Sky+ only records at one quality
setting).

The SKY+ "dumps" the broadcast to disk. This is actually helpful as most
broadcasts are low bitrate crap. It's the perfect way of getting "adaptive"
recording where the space taken up on the disk reflects the quality of the
broadcast.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I love my sky plus machine.
It's pathetically simple to use - even my 6 year old navigates the
menus like a pro, it can be set to record via the sky web site or by
text message. Now i know its a little tricky for people from Preston,
but what else do you need it to do? I dont want it 'suggesting' things
I might like recording and I dont want sky stealing half my hard drive
for sky's 'suggestions' either, but that's about the only problem I
have with it.

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

"Ed" wrote in message
oups.com...


I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I love my sky plus machine.
It's pathetically simple to use - even my 6 year old navigates the
menus like a pro, it can be set to record via the sky web site or by
text message. Now i know its a little tricky for people from Preston,
but what else do you need it to do? I dont want it 'suggesting' things
I might like recording and I dont want sky stealing half my hard drive
for sky's 'suggestions' either, but that's about the only problem I
have with it.




the main scope for improvement is in the season pass department etc - it's
pretty annoying when the sky+ box forgets the season pass due to the show
being off for a week.
with tivo i could set the pass, the series ends, then a new series starts 6
months later and it remembers.
also if there was a film i wanted that had a habit of turning up on late
night tv once every 2 years i could enter it as a wishlist, and in 3 years
time when it finally gets aired, there it is - recorded for me.
it's only when you use the tivo software that you can see the difference.
i dearly wish it could be loaded onto my sky+ box - best of both worlds.



--
Gareth.

That fly... is your magic wand.
http://www.last.fm/user/dsbmusic/

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

No, the picture "quality" would be typical Sky, i.e full of MPEG
artifacts.

Quality in respect of broadcast TV went irretrievably down the pan
about two decades ago.

Next


--

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Sun, 27 May 2007 19:59:22 +0100, "John Russell" wrote:


"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 27 May 2007 18:33:58 +0100, "John Russell"
wrote:


"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 27 May 2007 15:58:04 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

John Russell wrote:

Sky contract the design of box's to their spec for use by SKY
customers.
SKY
are not in the business of producing box's for general use. SKY are
not
responsible for the crap design of non SKY box's!

Sky will not allow the use of their cam in non approved boxes, to keep a
tight reign on what will be the future pvr market. Sky+ is a truly awful
retarded product, which has had little innovation over the last few
years,
using outdated technology and interface. It will not change, because it
doesnt have to, it is the only game in town, because nobody else has
access
to the cam.

The User Interface for Sky & SKy+ has not changed since launch. It looks
very old & clunky compared
to Vista Media Center for example. The UI for the Sky HD box is just the
same. It's crazy as by
definition the user must have an HDTV so why is the UI designed for an
SDTV?

If you don't like it get Virgin Media!

Not an option for the majority of the population in the UK.
--

Life's a bitch!

I suggest you start your own company if accepting the limitations of being a
customer is getting you down.

My comments on the ugly Sky+ interface were more of an observation than a complaint. It does the job
but it's a shame that they didn't ake the opportunity to rework the GUI with the launch of the HD
model.
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

John Russell wrote:
"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...

Exactly. The SKY+ is designed for those who want SKY channels. One minute
posters condemn SKY's kit for being crap, the next they can't find
anything
as good as the SKY+ elsewhere and blame SKY for that as well.

A pvr that wishes to access subscription based sky channels has to capture
the signal in an anolgue fashion. This increases manufacturing costs
massively, and reduces the picture quality, it also makes dual lnb feature
impossible.

This is the direct fault of sky, who prevent their box manufacturers from
accessing the cam with equipment that is not SKY+. An open cam (the
encryption is not at risk), would result in an avalaunch of tivo like
variants on the market, and not what is in essence a retarded sky+
interface.

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

Sky HD is not possible in Media Center because HD outside the US is not supported. SD with a CAM & a
legitimate Sky subscription card is possible & works very well with Vista Media Center, FloppyDTV
tuners & Dragon/T.Rex CAMs. There is a very long discussion over on AVForums
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:32:32 +0100, Mike wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

No, the picture "quality" would be typical Sky, i.e full of MPEG
artifacts.

Quality in respect of broadcast TV went irretrievably down the pan
about two decades ago.

Next

Sky are only one of many satellite broadcasters. Picture quality on a great number of channels is
excellent BBC One & five in standard defintion are particularly good. For High definition BBC HD is
the best but the other HD channels are exceptional. Have you actually watched satellite broadcasts
connected via HDMI to a HD TV or projector?
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

Mike wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

No, the picture "quality" would be typical Sky, i.e full of MPEG
artifacts.

Quality in respect of broadcast TV went irretrievably down the pan
about two decades ago.

Next

Its the best we are going to get though. A sky picture is usually an awful
lot better then freeview.

Gaz

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

Nigel Barker wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

John Russell wrote:
"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...

Exactly. The SKY+ is designed for those who want SKY channels. One
minute
posters condemn SKY's kit for being crap, the next they can't find
anything
as good as the SKY+ elsewhere and blame SKY for that as well.

A pvr that wishes to access subscription based sky channels has to
capture
the signal in an anolgue fashion. This increases manufacturing costs
massively, and reduces the picture quality, it also makes dual lnb
feature
impossible.

This is the direct fault of sky, who prevent their box manufacturers from
accessing the cam with equipment that is not SKY+. An open cam (the
encryption is not at risk), would result in an avalaunch of tivo like
variants on the market, and not what is in essence a retarded sky+
interface.

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

Sky HD is not possible in Media Center because HD outside the US is not
supported.

This is for technical reasons, more then anything else. The HD supported in
the us is largely over the air. It isnt the 'hd' that is the sticking point
for MCE, as a hd stream, is just another stream, and can be displayed with a
standard spec up to date media centre computer, the problem is in accessing
and decoding the stream.

SD with a CAM & a legitimate Sky subscription card is possible &
works very well with Vista Media Center, FloppyDTV tuners & Dragon/T.Rex
CAMs. There is a very long discussion over on AVForums
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927

It works, it doesnt work very well, and it isnt a reliable long term
solution. It is a botch up, it isnt in the slightest wife friendly, and
likely to result in more failed recordings. It is also liable at any moment
for sky to change their encryption key, and render the whole process
pointless.

We should be able to buy a sky approved cam, which will only work from a sky
subscription card, and build our own media centres. The technology now, with
the demise of vhs, means that consumers are been shoved into limited, and
highly controlled series of DRMs.

Gaz

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

Dom Robinson wrote:
In article ,
says...

"Dom Robinson" wrote in message
...


Exactly. The SKY+ is designed for those who want SKY channels. One
minute
posters condemn SKY's kit for being crap, the next they can't find
anything
as good as the SKY+ elsewhere and blame SKY for that as well.

TiVo - that's better than Sky+



in software by a mile, in hardware nowhere near - inferior picture and
sound, only 1 tuner.

Here we go again...

Best Quality on a TiVo is a negligible difference to the original quality,
and
at least I can set recordings of different qualities so I can do radio
stations in basic quality (since it only affects the picture) and maximise
the
hard drive space that way (since Sky+ only records at one quality
setting).

But this is not true. Mode 0 is very good etc, but you cannot escape the
fact that often you are re-mpeg encoding an mpeg encoded video stream, and
doing it on the fly. This creates visual problems that are most certainly
noticable on a big screen (well my 55inch shows it all up now).


Sure, an extra tuner would be nice, and we'd have it if TiVo had taken off
in
the UK since they're on a lovely HD model in the US, but the majority of
stuff
I want to record is repeated within the week and TiVo searches out the
alternate broadcasts very easily.

Yes, tivo is magic at that..... Tivo seems to be like the Americans
reaching for the moon in 1969, and then happy to continue circling the earth
in a daft shuttle for the rest of time.

Tivo reached for the moon, Sky+ barely manages s****horpe.

Gaz

The Sky+ £10 fee letter hath arrived
 

On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:04:46 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

Nigel Barker wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:29:36 +0100, "Gaz" wrote:

John Russell wrote:
"Nigel Barker" wrote in message
...

Exactly. The SKY+ is designed for those who want SKY channels. One
minute
posters condemn SKY's kit for being crap, the next they can't find
anything
as good as the SKY+ elsewhere and blame SKY for that as well.

A pvr that wishes to access subscription based sky channels has to
capture
the signal in an anolgue fashion. This increases manufacturing costs
massively, and reduces the picture quality, it also makes dual lnb
feature
impossible.

This is the direct fault of sky, who prevent their box manufacturers from
accessing the cam with equipment that is not SKY+. An open cam (the
encryption is not at risk), would result in an avalaunch of tivo like
variants on the market, and not what is in essence a retarded sky+
interface.

Imagine xp media centre with cam access to sky and skyhd? It would give
incredible picture and flexibility.

Sky HD is not possible in Media Center because HD outside the US is not
supported.

This is for technical reasons, more then anything else. The HD supported in
the us is largely over the air. It isnt the 'hd' that is the sticking point
for MCE, as a hd stream, is just another stream, and can be displayed with a
standard spec up to date media centre computer, the problem is in accessing
and decoding the stream.

Media Center encodes any analogue TV to MPEG2. HDTV in the US is MPEG2 just as is DVB-T (Freeview).
All TV in MC is MPEG2. HDTV here in Europe is H.264/MPEG-4 AVC so not supported in MC

SD with a CAM & a legitimate Sky subscription card is possible &
works very well with Vista Media Center, FloppyDTV tuners & Dragon/T.Rex
CAMs. There is a very long discussion over on AVForums
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927

It works, it doesnt work very well, and it isnt a reliable long term
solution. It is a botch up, it isnt in the slightest wife friendly, and
likely to result in more failed recordings. It is also liable at any moment
for sky to change their encryption key, and render the whole process
pointless.

Have you actually used a MC with DVB-S tuners? A year ago under MCE 2005 it was iffy. Now dual
tuners work transparently & reliably in Vista MC. Partly this is because DVB-T in Vista MC is much
improved on MCE 2005. All the FTA channels are available without any CAM & the number of FTA channel
will increase with the launch of the BBC's Freesat service next year. C4 at least as a Public
Service Broadcaster will be obliged to appear on the Freesat platform.

We should be able to buy a sky approved cam, which will only work from a sky
subscription card, and build our own media centres. The technology now, with
the demise of vhs, means that consumers are been shoved into limited, and
highly controlled series of DRMs.

While being able to buy a Sky approved CAM would be nice it's not going to happen without them being
forced by legislation. Surely the DVD recorder is the modern day replacement for the VCR with much
better picture quality. That's not subject to any DRM
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur